Red tape traps freed Australian in Beijing

Wang Jianping, who was freed earlier this month after years of imprisonment in China for spying, has been unable to leave the country because Beijing refuses to recognise his Australian passport.

Mr Wang was imprisoned in 1983 after being convicted of passing state secrets to Australian diplomat Murray McLean, but three years later escaped to Australia where he took up citizenship.

He was re-arrested during a business trip to China in 1995 and sent back to jail.

Since then the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, unsuccessfully tried to arrange for consular officials to visit Mr Wang, who was kept in solitary confinement and slept on a concrete floor for nearly a year after being re-arrested.

But Beijing refused to accept Mr Wang's change of nationality, saying that escapees do not have the right to renounce their status as Chinese citizens.

Since his release on November 7, the Chinese Government has demanded that Mr Wang leave the country as a Chinese national with current Chinese documentation, which he does not have.

Chanaka Bandarage, the Canberra lawyer engaged by the Wang family, yesterday wrote to Mr Downer complaining that the minister had failed to take up the impasse with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing.

Mr Bandarage wrote that Mr Wang was being told to obtain Beijing residency papers, in order apply for an exit permit, but he does not have the required permanent address in the capital.

Mr Bandarage claimed that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had a long "pathetic record" in the handling of Mr Wang's case.

He complained that Australia's ambassador to Beijing, Alan Thomas, had failed to meet Mr Wang since his release.

"Mr Wang in his possession has a valid Australian passport and he should be able to use it to travel to Australia," Mr Bandarage said in his letter to Mr Downer.

A spokesman for Mr Downer said last night that Australian embassy officials in Beijing were talking to Chinese authorities in a bid to secure Mr Wang's return to Australia as soon as possible.

The spokesman said that it was more important to take a pragmatic approach than to insist that Mr Wang be able to fly out of Beijing on his Australian passport.

Mr Downer's office maintained that a great deal of effort had been made by the Australian Government and Foreign Affairs Department officials to help Mr Wang during his long ordeal.